Day 52 - Monday 4 June - Furano to Asahikawa

Stoopid east facing windows and stoopid sun that gets up at 4am and stoopid blinds that do nothing to keep out the light or heat :( Blah. So it was very hot in our room. So didn't sleep all that well :(

Furano station

Breakfast was at the hotel. We'd chosen "western" breakfasts the night before (fish and natto for breakfast? no, don't think so). But they brought out all this food. I couldn't get through it! Saved my bread roll and sweet roll for later.

Then we headed up into the mountains again.

Stopped first at the dam at Lake Chubetsu. Cause I like dams. Have I mentioned that? :)

Chubetsu Dam

Spillway from Chubetsu Dam

Asahidake and Chubetsu Lake

Asahidake

Chubetsu Dam

Then into the national park and up to the Asahidake Ropeway.

Avalanche barriers

But first, 500 yen for parking. WTF? When just down the road was a public car park that was free. Grunt. So already feeling ripped off. Then to go up the cable car it's 2800 yen. Each. !! WTF?? I was way pissed off at that point. But we went up anyway and I grumped the whole way :(

Cable car on Asahidake Ropeway

Still, it was a fairly nice place at the top. We went up for a wander up into the snow and mud around the walking tracks and saw the little lakes and the fumaroles. Stu definitely enjoyed it. I would have more if hadn't been so badly ripped off. *sigh*

Asahidake

Sugatami Station and view west from Asahidake

Lake Chubetsu

Lake on Asahidake

Fumaroles on Asahidake

Fumarole and sulphur deposits on Asahidake

Sugatami Station

Had some snacks while waiting for a cable car down.

View from the Asahidake Ropeway

Lower station of the Asahidake Ropeway

Then we decided to just go to Asahikawa rather than try and do any more mountains.

Inlet pipes for Hokkaido Electric Power Company

So got into town and negotiated city streets and got to the hotel ok.

Our room at the hotel

Symbol Tower at Tokiwa Rotary

Had a bit of a relax for a little while.

Then we decided to head out to find some dinner. We were going to get ramen (which this place is famous for), but as we were getting ready Stu looked out the window and said "there's a festival" and I'm like "Japanese street food!!!!!" So that's where we went.

It was just in this little park near the river. All around the outer edge of the park, and through the middle were stalls setup selling food and toys. We had some *amazing* food, as well as some average food, and some pretty good food. Love love love Japanese street food :) Not really sure what the festival was for. We asked at the hotel, she said something about the transition between spring and summer. Couldn't find anything online about it, but not really sure what to look for! heh. We were probably the only gaijin there (we certainly didn't see any others).